Alpheus S. Williams

Alpheus Starkey Williams (29 September 1810-21 December 1878) was a Union Army Major-General during the American Civil War and a member of the US House of Representatives (D-MI 1) from 4 March 1875 to 21 December 1878 (succeeding Moses W. Field and preceding John Stoughton Newberry).

Biography
Alpheus Starkey Williams was born in Deep River, Connecticut in 1810, and he settled in Detroit, Michigan in 1836 after touring the United States and Europe. He became probate judge of Wayne County, President of the Bank of St. Clair in 1842, owner of the Advertiser newspaper in 1843, and Postmaster of Detroit from 1849 to 1853. He went on to serve as a US Army lieutenant colonel during the Mexican-American War, although his regiment arrived too late to see any action. At the start of the American Civil War, he was promoted to Brigadier-General, and he commanded a brigade in the Army of the Potomac before serving under John Pope during his campaign in northern Virginia in 1862. He was defeated at the Battle of Cedar Mountain and unable to make it to the Second Battle of Bull Run, but his division later discovered the Confederate invasion plans before the Battle of Antietam. He temporarily took over Joseph K. Mansfield's corps after Mansfield was killed early in the ensuing battle, and his division would later suffer heavy losses at the May 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville while holding back the Confederate advance. During the Battle of Gettysburg, he commanded XII Corps, and he ably defended Culp's Hill from the Confederates. Williams later fought in the Atlanta Campaign, and he was promoted to Major-General on 12 January 1865. After the war, he served as a military administrator in Arkansas until 1866, and he served as Minister to El Salvador from 1866 to 1899 and served in the US House of Representatives from 1875 until his death from a stroke in 1878.